Horace Nicholls: artist-photographer at war

霍勒斯·尼科尔斯（Horace W. Nicholls）是二十世纪初英国最著名的摄影师之一。作为世界上第一批真正意义上的摄影记者之一，他的作品影响了后世的摄影记者。尼科尔斯报道了南非的第二次英布战争。1901年，他在一个具有里程碑意义的法庭案件中确立了照片的合法版权。他记录了全面战争对英国人民的影响，作为英国在大后方的第一位官方摄影师，他有独特的机会，特别是对女性战争工作者。战争结束后，他成为新成立的帝国战争博物馆的工作室负责人（首席摄影师），在那里他致力于保护和发展帝国战争博物馆的摄影收藏，并记录了纪念活动的演变。今天，人们对尼科尔斯的许多照片都很熟悉，但对拍摄这些照片的人却知之甚少。四十年来，没有对他的作品进行过重大的研究、出版或展览。2017年将是尼科尔斯诞辰150周年，也是他在第一次世界大战中被任命为英国信息部首任大后方官方摄影师的100周年。尼科尔斯是英国摄影史上几个重要领域的交汇点。首先，作为新成立的帝国战争博物馆的摄影主管，他的实践对委托机构和摄影师之间的关系进行了开创性的研究。双方如何看待这种关系？它是如何发展的？它留下了什么？其次，Nicholls对战争摄影和战争时期摄影词汇的早期发展进行了研究。他对大后方的记录，尤其是女性的战争工作，以及新兴的纪念活动都是重要的主题，并有助于批判性地欣赏摄影在当时和之后塑造公众对战争对平民影响的理解方面所起的作用。第三，尼科尔斯代表了一种真正的英国新闻摄影风格，这种风格将与20世纪30年代的美国人引进的做法相结合，形成了人们熟悉的《图片邮报》。他毫不掩饰自己处理照片的习惯，尤其是使用各种形式的合成印刷或拼贴。对这一表达维度的考察将使我们更清楚地认识到尼科尔斯对他身后独特的英国新闻摄影形式的贡献。同样重要的是，他的角色在事实记者和宣传家之间发生了转变。这项研究有可能给我们带来比尼科尔斯传记更深远的启示。从记忆研究和文化史、新闻摄影史和摄影阅读的角度出发，它将把尼科尔斯清楚地置于他所处的各种基质中，包括英国文化认同的发展、新闻摄影的历史、公众舆论的塑造和博物馆学的发展。

Horace W. Nicholls was one of Britain's best known photographers of the early twentieth century. As one of the world's firsttrue photojournalists, his work shaped that of succeeding generations. Nicholls reported the 2nd Anglo-Boer War in SouthAfrica. He established legal copyright in photographs in a landmark court case in 1901. He documented the impact of totalwar on the British people, and, as Britain's first official photographer on the Home Front, had unique access, particularly towomen war workers. After the war, he became the new Imperial War Museum's Head of Studio (Chief Photographer)where he worked to secure and develop the IWM's photographic collections and documented the evolution ofcommemorative activities. Today, many of Nicholls' photographs are familiar but little is known about the man who tookthem. There has been no significant research, publication or exhibition of his work for forty years. 2017 will be the 150thanniversary of Nicholls' birth and the centenary of his appointment as the first Ministry of Information Home Front officialphotographer in the First World War.Nicholls is at the meeting-point of a number of areas of significance for British photographic history. First, as head ofphotography at the new Imperial War Museum, his practice presents a pioneering study in the relations between acommissioning institution and photographer. How was the relationship seen by both parties, how did it develop, and whatwere its legacies? Second, Nicholls presents a study in the early development of the vocabularies of war photography andof photography in a time of war. His documentation of the Home Front, notably women's war work, as well as emergingpractices of commemoration are important themes, and lend themselves to a critical appreciation of photography's role inshaping public understandings of the impact of war on civilians, both at the time and since. Third, Nicholls represents anauthentically British line of photojournalism that was to be blended with practices imported by émigrés in the 1930s to makethe familiar manner of Picture Post. He made no secret of his habit of manipulating photographs, notably by using variousforms of composite printing or collage. An examination of this expressive dimension will enable a clearer appreciation ofNicholls' contribution to the peculiarly British form that photojournalism took in his wake. Important too, is the shiftingground between his role as a factual reporter and propagandist.The study has potential to throw light far beyond Nicholls' biography. Drawing on perspectives from memory studies andcultural history, the history of photojournalism and the reading of photography, it will situate Nicholls clearly in the variousmatrices in which he has a place, including the development of a British cultural identity, the history of photojournalism, theshaping of public opinion and the development of museology.